The One Year Bible TLB (195 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
September 16This is God’s message concerning Jerusalem:
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What is happening? Where is everyone going? Why are they running to the rooftops? What are they looking at?
2
The whole city is in terrible uproar. What’s the trouble in this busy, happy city?
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Bodies! Lying everywhere, slain by plague and not by sword.
3
All your leaders flee; they surrender without resistance. The people slip away but they are captured too.
4
Leave me alone to weep. Don’t try to comfort me—let me cry for my people as I watch them being destroyed.
5
Oh, what a day of crushing trouble! What a day of confusion and terror from the Lord God of heaven’s armies! The walls of Jerusalem are breached, and the cry of death echoes from the mountainsides.
6-7
Elamites are the archers; Syrians drive the chariots; the men of Kir hold up the shields. They fill your choicest valleys and crowd against your gates.
8
God has removed his protecting care. You run to the armory for your weapons!
9-11
You inspect the walls of Jerusalem to see what needs repair! You check over the houses and tear some down for stone for fixing walls. Between the city walls, you build a reservoir for water from the lower pool! But all your feverish plans will not avail, for you never ask for help from God, who lets this come upon you. He is the one who planned it long ago.
12
The Lord God called you to repent, to weep and mourn, to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins, and to wear clothes made of sackcloth to show your remorse.
13
But instead, you sing and dance and play, and feast and drink. “Let us eat, drink, and be merry,” you say: “What’s the difference, for tomorrow we die.”
14
The Lord Almighty has revealed to me that this sin will never be forgiven you until the day you die.
15-16
Furthermore, the same Lord God of the armies of heaven has told me this: Go and say to Shebna, the palace administrator: “And who do you think you are, building this beautiful sepulchre in the rock for yourself?
17
For the Lord who allowed you to be clothed so gorgeously will hurl you away, sending you into captivity, O strong man!
18
He will wad you up in his hands like a ball and toss you away into a distant, barren land; there you will die, O glorious one—you who disgrace your nation!
19
“Yes, I will drive you out of office,” says the Lord, “and pull you down from your high position.
20
And then I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, to replace you.
21
He shall have your uniform and title and authority, and he will be a father to the people of Jerusalem and all Judah.
22
I will give him responsibility over all my people; whatever he says will be done; none will be able to stop him.
23-24
I will make of him a strong and steady peg to support my people; they will load him with responsibility, and he will be an honor to his family name.”
25
But the Lord will pull out that other peg that seems to be so firmly fastened to the wall! It will come out and fall to the ground, and everything it supports will fall with it, for the Lord has spoken.
23:
1
This is God’s message to Tyre:
Weep, O ships of Tyre,
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returning home from distant lands! Weep for your harbor, for it is gone! The rumors that you heard in Cyprus are all true.
2-3
Deathly silence is everywhere. Stillness reigns where once your hustling port was full of ships from Sidon, bringing merchandise from far across the ocean, from Egypt and along the Nile. You were the merchandise mart of the world.
4
Be ashamed, O Sidon, stronghold of the sea. For you are childless now!
5
When Egypt hears the news, there will be great sorrow.
6
Flee to Tarshish, men of Tyre, weeping as you go.
7
This silent ruin is all that’s left of your once joyous land. What a history was yours! Think of all the colonists you sent to distant lands!
8
Who has brought this disaster on Tyre, empire builder and top trader of the world?
9
The Commander of the armies of heaven has done it to destroy your pride and show his contempt for all the greatness of mankind.
10
Sail on, O ships of Tarshish, for your harbor is gone.
11
The Lord holds out his hand over the seas; he shakes the kingdoms of the earth; he has spoken out against this great merchant city, to destroy its strength.
12
He says, “Never again, O dishonored virgin, daughter of Sidon, will you rejoice, will you be strong. Even if you flee to Cyprus, you will find no rest.”
13
It will be the Babylonians, not the Assyrians, who consign Tyre to the wild beasts. They will lay siege to it, raze its palaces, and make it a heap of ruins.
14
Wail, you ships that ply the oceans, for your home port is destroyed!
15-16
For seventy years Tyre will be forgotten. Then, in the days of another king, the city will come back to life again; she will sing sweet songs as a harlot sings who, long absent from her lovers, walks the streets to look for them again and is remembered.
17
Yes, after seventy years, the Lord will revive Tyre, but she will be no different than she was before; she will return again to all her evil ways around the world.
18
Yet the distant time will come when
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her businesses will give their profits to the Lord! They will not be hoarded but used for good food and fine clothes for the priests of the Lord!
24:
1
Look! The Lord is overturning the land of Judah and making it a vast wasteland of destruction. See how he is emptying out all its people and scattering them over the face of the earth.
2
Priests and people, servants and masters, slave girls and mistresses, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, bankers and debtors—none will be spared.
3
The land will be completely emptied and looted. The Lord has spoken.
4-5
The land suffers for the sins of its people. The earth languishes, the crops wither, the skies refuse their rain. The land is defiled by crime; the people have twisted the laws of God and broken his everlasting commands.
6
Therefore the curse of God is upon them; they are left desolate, destroyed by the drought. Few will be left alive.
7
All the joys of life will go: the grape harvest will fail, the wine will be gone, the merrymakers will sigh and mourn.
8
The melodious chords of the harp and timbrel are heard no more; the happy days are ended.
9
No more are the joys of wine and song; strong drink turns bitter in the mouth.
10
The city lies in chaos; every home and shop is locked up tight to keep out looters.
11
Mobs form in the streets, crying for wine; joy has reached its lowest ebb; gladness has been banished from the land.
12
The city is left in ruins; its gates are battered down.
13
Throughout the land
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the story is the same—only a remnant is left.
14
But all who are left will shout and sing for joy; those in the west will praise the majesty of God,
15-16
and those in the east will respond with praise. Hear them singing to the Lord from the ends of the earth, singing glory to the Righteous One!
But my heart is heavy with grief, for evil still prevails and treachery is everywhere.
17
Terror and the captivity of hell are still your lot, O men of the world.
18
When you flee in terror, you will fall into a pit, and if you escape from the pit, you will step into a trap, for destruction falls from the heavens upon you; the world is shaken beneath you.
19
The earth has broken down in utter collapse; everything is lost, abandoned, and confused.
20
The world staggers like a drunkard; it shakes like a tent in a storm. It falls and will not rise again, for the sins of the earth are very great.
21
On that day the Lord will punish the fallen angels in the heavens and the proud rulers of the nations on earth.
22
They will be rounded up like prisoners and imprisoned in a dungeon until they are tried and condemned.
23
Then the Lord of heaven’s armies will mount his throne in Zion and rule gloriously in Jerusalem, in the sight of all the elders of his people. Such glory there will be that all the brightness of the sun and moon will seem to fade away.
But what if we trust Christ to save us and then find that we are wrong and that we cannot be saved without being circumcised and obeying all the other Jewish laws? Wouldn’t we need to say that faith in Christ had ruined us? God forbid that anyone should dare to think such things about our Lord.
18
Rather, we are sinners if we start rebuilding the old systems I have been destroying of trying to be saved by keeping Jewish laws,
19
for it was through reading the Scripture that I came to realize that I could never find God’s favor by trying—and failing—to obey the laws. I came to realize that acceptance with God comes by believing in Christ.
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20
I have been crucified with Christ: and I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the real life I now have within this body is a result of my trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21
I am not one of those who treats Christ’s death as meaningless. For if we could be saved by keeping Jewish laws, then there was no need for Christ to die.
3:
1
Oh, foolish Galatians! What magician has hypnotized you and cast an evil spell upon you? For you used to see the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death as clearly as though I had waved a placard before you with a picture on it of Christ dying on the cross.
2
Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by trying to keep the Jewish laws? Of course not, for the Holy Spirit came upon you only after you heard about Christ and trusted him to save you.
3
Then have you gone completely crazy? For if trying to obey the Jewish laws never gave you spiritual life in the first place, why do you think that trying to obey them now will make you stronger Christians?
4
You have suffered so much for the Gospel. Now are you going to just throw it all overboard? I can hardly believe it!
5
I ask you again, does God give you the power of the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you as a result of your trying to obey the Jewish laws? No, of course not. It is when you believe in Christ and fully trust him.
6
Abraham had the same experience—God declared him fit for heaven only because he believed God’s promises.
7
You can see from this that the real children of Abraham are all the men of faith who truly trust in God.
8-9
What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would save the Gentiles also, through their faith. God told Abraham about this long ago when he said, “I will bless those in every nation who trust in me as you do.” And so it is: all who trust in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received.
Written by David at the time he was at war with Syria, with the outcome still uncertain; this was when Joab, captain of his forces, slaughtered twelve thousand men of Edom in Salt Valley.
O God, you have rejected us and broken our defenses; you have become angry and deserted us. Lord, restore us again to your favor.
2
You have caused this nation to tremble in fear; you have torn it apart. Lord, heal it now, for it is shaken to its depths.
3
You have been very hard on us and made us reel beneath your blows.
4-5
But you have given us a banner to rally to; all who love truth will rally to it;
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then you can deliver your beloved people. Use your strong right arm to rescue us.
6-7
God has promised to help us. He has vowed it by his holiness! No wonder I exult! “Shechem, Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh—still are mine!” he says. “Judah shall continue to produce kings, and Ephraim great warriors.
8
Moab shall become my lowly servant, and Edom my slave. And I will shout in triumph over the Philistines.”
9-10
Who will bring me in triumph into Edom’s strong cities? God will! He who cast us off! He who abandoned us to our foes!
11
Yes, Lord, help us against our enemies, for man’s help is useless.
12
With God’s help we shall do mighty things, for he will trample down our foes.